Receive what comes

In 1992 I visited Master Kenneth Chung in San Francisco. I had heard about him in 1982 from his student Eddie Chong. I had about 15 years of training in Wing Chun at that time from various teachers of the art.

The first thing that Kenneth Chung asked me was how I would deal with a straight punch?

Well that was no problem for me. I could use the Pak sau or slapping, the Biu sau or poking hand that Bruce Lee was famous for, or the Wing Chun signature move called the Bong sau or Wing hand (arm). Of course I also knew to just punch.

When I applied the three hands, Ken said that those had nothing to do with Wing Chun. He further explained that what I did was against the Wing Chun principles. He said the guiding principle was “Receive What Comes.” What I did with each of those three movements was to apply an outward pushing force. He said “you just pushed away my force like you are scared of my force!” He said the idea of Receive is to suck in the incoming force, to welcome that force, to bring it in. That of course made instant sense to me because I heard those same words from day one of my Wing Chun training and told all of my students that however I wasn’t doing that.

Every movement I did on Ken he would receive and bring in which I also knew but which I didn’t do. Actually one martial arts teacher by the name of Mike Chin, who I shared my knowledge with always pulled any attack close into to his body so that he could counter me with some devastating close range strike.

There are various ways they say these Wing Chun principles. The first colloquial way it was put to me by someone called Mark Lee was:

Concise Chinese way to explain the principles

Come, Welcome
Go, Follow
Stay, Go

Mark explained if a visitor comes to your home, you welcome him and invite him into your home. If the visitor goes to leave, you follow him. But if the visitor stays too long, then you just go.

Other versions of these sayings are:

Receive what comes
Follow what goes
Thrust forward when the hand is freed

Wordy English way to explain the principles

When a hand attack come in, you don’t oppose the force. You let the force in but in a planned way. If the opponent wants to draw his hand back to do another attack, then you don’t allow this to happen. You follow his hand back to his body. If you are in contact with the opponent’s hands and suddenly you don’t feel anything, then your best bet is to immediately strike forward towards the opponent’s central axis because you don’t know what he is up to and a straight line attack should be the fastest choice to prevent getting hit with some circular strike.